Fennel-crusted baked feta with roasted plums
A vegcentric, one-pot flavour feast!
This is a kooky one but boy was it utterly delicious! Since first sharing this recipe we’ve made a few amendments which have taken the dish to new heights, namely a crispy sage, hazelnut & orange zest topper, and a vibrant side salad with fresh orange. If you can get your hands on blood oranges at this time of year they are fantastic here! Please bear with us while we update the photos - these are from version 1.0 but the look and feel of the dish is much the same.
This recipe makes use of red potatoes - though in reality any potato will work - which are so smooth and creamy, and a perfect contrast to the salty, crusted feta. The natural sugars in the plums caramelise as they roast, and offer really complex flavours as well as a heavenly jammy texture. Together with the fennel-crusted feta they create the perfect sweet-salty balance which is delightful.
The sage & hazelnut ‘topper’ is one we’ve rolled out for many dishes this winter, including baked lemon sole, and these roasted shallot & gorgonzola fonduta toasts. It’s a simple final flourish with an incredible impact!
This is a ‘one-pot-wonder’ and end-to-end the recipe will take 32 minutes, but most of that is ‘hands-off’.
Wine pairing.
And what to drink? We enjoyed this with a new world Merlot from Paso Robles in California. The wine was rich and silky and a very pleasant contact to the salty, crusted feta; it was bursting with ripe plums and juicy dark fruits which echoed the roasted plums and sweet red onions very well indeed. We discussed this wine during our first live #WineWednesday which you can watch on our Instagram TV page here.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 32 minutes
This recipe serves 2 people
Ingredients:
For the ‘tray roast’:
2 medium red potatoes
2 red onion
2 plums
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red chilli, finely sliced
½ tsp flakey sea salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 block feta
2 tbsp fennel seeds
For the crispy sage topper:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp roasted hazelnuts
8-12 sage leaves
pinch of salt
1 orange, zest only
For the salad:
4-6 large handfuls of mixed salad leaves (if you can find red vein sorrel this works particularly well)
1 orange
1 tbsp red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees fan (or 220 conventional)
While it’s preheating prep your vegetables : dice the potatoes into chunky cubes, approximately 3 cm by 3 cm and leave the skin on (it will add lovely flavour and a variety of textures in the final dish); peel the onions and cut these through the root into 8 half moons per onion; de-stone and cut the plums into 6 wedges each; and slice the chilli.
Toss the prepped vegetables in 2 tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper; toss these into an oven-proof serving dish or skillet, and roast at the top of the hot oven for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, scatter the fennel seeds in shallow dish, and press the feta into them to from a crust on both sides.
After 20 minutes add the whole block of feta, and any left over fennel seeds, to the skillet and return it to the oven for a final 12 minutes. The texture of baked feta is utterly fantastic - it soufflés slightly, becoming airy, unctuous and somehow even more flavoursome.
During these final 12 minutes you have time to make the crispy sage topper and the salad. Roughly chop the toasted hazelnuts (if they need toasting pop them in the oven for 4 mins), and pick your sage leaves from the stalks. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a small frying pan and once warm add the sage and hazelnuts and fry gently over a medium heat for 2-4 minutes, stirring often. These leaves may discolour slightly but hopefully not burn; they will stiffen up once cool. Turn off the heat and use a microplane or small grater to zest the orange over the pan - the smell of the perfumed orange zest hitting the warm olive oil is extraordinary. Stir this in well to complete your ‘topper’.
Finally, peel and slice the orange in to segments or rounds, pull them apart slightly with your fingers, and toss these with the salad leaves, olive oil, sea salt and vinegar.
Top the baked feta with the crispy sage & hazelnuts and serve at the table. Warm sourdough and olive oil make a lovely addition if you’re looking for a side dish.
